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Summerhill celebrates his win

Craig is rewarded for his aggressive ride

Dear Readers,
Welcome to this week's edition of The Prologue the summary of news from the world of competitive cycling by your friends at VeloNews.com.

“We want to create a race that is not predictable.” So said Tour de France race director Christian Prudhomme Thursday inannouncing the course for the 95th Tour, which takes place next year fromJuly 5 to 27. Prudhomme should get his wish because the 21-stage, 3554kmroute he presented has a plethora of stages that hark back to the dayswhen breakaways usually succeeded and the yellow jersey changed hands manymore times than it does in modern times.

You can’t talk about South Africa’s Absa Cape Epic (www.cape-epic.com) mountain-bike stage race without mentioning Kevin Vermaak. The Cape Town native dreamt up the idea for the race after participating in Costa Rica’s La Ruta de los Conquistadores in 2002, then quit his job at the Royal Bank of Scotland to get the Cape Epic off and running by 2003. Since then, the event has blossomed into the premier off-road stage race for professional cross-country riders. In 2007, six of the top eight male UCI-ranked cross-country started their respective seasons off with the Absa Cape Epic. And nearly

Czech cyclocross star Zdenek Stybar will attempt to thrill a home crowd - and prove that his win last weekend wasn’t a fluke - when he lines up in the front row at World Cup No. 2 in Tabor on Saturday. The hour-long men’s race starts at 2 p.m. local time. There are no junior, under-23 or women’s races. The 21-year-old Fidea rider was the surprise winner of round one last Sunday in Kalmthout, Belgium, breaking away solo on the second of 11 laps and never looking back. At the line Stybar had a comfortable 33-second cushion over second-placed Sven Nys (Rabobank), allowing plenty of time to grab

The German-based T-Mobile women’s team completed its 2008 roster last week, with ten returning riders and three new signings, including American national champion Mara Abbott. After finishing the season at the top of the UCI rankings, the powerhouse T-team women’s is aiming even higher in 2008. In addition to Abbott, who spent 2007 with Webcor Builders, team director Anna Wilson and team manager Kristy Scrygmeour added German national champion Luise Keller as well as young talent Madeleine Sandig. “We are extremely happy to have finished the season accomplishing our goal to be the number

Cyclocross fans are familiar with most of the initials. UCI, signifying a big race; USGP, the nation’s premier series. But KY? The U.S. Gran Prix of Cyclocross begins its six-race romp this weekend in Louisville, Kentucky. The weekend represents the first UCI ’cross race ever held in the state. The city is behind the event, hosting two days of racing in Champion’s Park just east of downtown along the Ohio River. “Louisville has developed into a great cycling town, and along with a great corporate partner in Papa John’s, we are proud to be able to host the premier cyclocross series in the

The climber-friendly 2008 Tour de France route looks ideal for defending champion Alberto Contador, but there’s no guarantee that he or his new-look Astana team will be at the July 5 start in Brest. Astana’s scandal-ridden 2006 season could prove an obstacle more challenging to overcome than any of the course’s mountains as Tour officials promise to take a harder line when considering which teams will take part in the season’s most important race. New Astana manager Johan Bruyneel admits the team must convince Tour officials that changes are more than cosmetic to prove it deserves a Tour

The day before the U.S. Gran Prix opener in Louisville, Kentucky, a few marquee riders were out riding the course. Here are a few of the faces and names you'll likely see at the front of this weekend's races: UCI points leader and three-time national champion Katie Compton, Georgia Gould, Danish national champion Joachim Parbo, Tim Johnson, Lyne Bessette, Danny Summerhill and Jesse Anthony.

Already facing a challenging jobsearch, Navigators Insurance rider Matt Cooke now has another struggleon his hands — replacing his belongings after an early-morning fire guttedhis Boulder, Colorado, condominium.The fire at the Gold Run Condominium Complex, which houses a large numberof University of Colorado students, broke out near 3 a.m. Friday morning.Cookesaid he was having a fitful night of sleep, worrying about his prospectsfor the 2008 season, when he smelled smoke.“I thought it was maybe lightning or fireworks, and then I said, ‘Let'sthink about that,’” Cooke told Boulder’sDaily

The Blue Ridge Mountains were a fitting backdrop to the opening of the 2007 USA Cycling Collegiate Mountain Bike Championships, as nearly 200 collegians hit a mud-riddled cross-country course on Friday. Traditional cycling powerhouses Fort Lewis College, Colorado College and Warren Wilson College took home first prize in the men's Division I, men's Division II and women's Division II cross country races, while a star from the University of Arizona held on to the title in the women's Division I contest. A week of steady rain left the technical cross-country course at

Prudhomme wants to keep things exciting in '08 and from the looks of it he will.

Will the '08 course favor climbers? Astana's Contador sure hopes so.

The entire region of Brittany has bought the rights to the grand départ.

Stybar is aiming for another win, this time at home.

Mara Abbott is making the jump from Webcor to T-Mobile for '08

Kona's Ryan Trebon has no reason to believe that his team's dominance of the USGP will end any time soon.

Compton and Bessette will resume their battle this weekend.

Johnson hopes to disrupt Kona's plans

Kentucky 'cross: A look at the USGP course

Kentucky 'cross: A look at the USGP course

Kentucky 'cross: A look at the USGP course

Kentucky 'cross: A look at the USGP course

Kentucky 'cross: A look at the USGP course

Kentucky 'cross: A look at the USGP course

Kentucky 'cross: A look at the USGP course

Kentucky 'cross: A look at the USGP course

Kentucky 'cross: A look at the USGP course

Kentucky 'cross: A look at the USGP course

Kentucky 'cross: A look at the USGP course

Kentucky 'cross: A look at the USGP course

Kentucky 'cross: A look at the USGP course

Kentucky 'cross: A look at the USGP course

Kentucky 'cross: A look at the USGP course

Kentucky 'cross: A look at the USGP course

Kentucky 'cross: A look at the USGP course

Kentucky 'cross: A look at the USGP course

Kentucky 'cross: A look at the USGP course

Kentucky 'cross: A look at the USGP course

Kentucky 'cross: A look at the USGP course

Kentucky 'cross: A look at the USGP course

Chloe Forsman (University of Arizona) nails the D1 women's race

The men's division field rolls off the line.

Dear Readers;It’s been a beautiful autumn here lately; blue skies, sunny days, the leaves turning beautiful hues of yellow, orange, and red before falling. The leaves haven’t been alone in falling this autumn. In the past few weeks, we’ve lost too many cyclists to collisions with motorists. For example, there was Linda Cleapor, who collided with the rear of a truck on September 12 while on her morning commute. No charges were filed. A week later,

When, earlier this week, the Tour de France directors Patrice Clerc and Christian Prudhomme embraced an initiative by the Union Cycliste Internationale and World Anti-Doping Agency to create a biological passport in the fight against doping, there was hope that three years of polemic were about to come to an end. Instead, in their presentation of the 2008 Tour at the Palais des Congrès in Paris on Thursday, Clerc and Prudhomme again spoke about their displeasure with the way cycling is being run. Although an invitation to the glitzy presentation was extended to UCI president Pat McQuaid, the

A lawyer for disgraced cyclist Andreiy Kashechkin, who tested positive for blood doping following the Tour de France, is looking for the European Court of Human Rights to clear the Kazakh. A former key member of the Astana team alongside compatriot Alexandre Vinokourov, Kashechkin has protested his innocence since testing positive for homologous blood doping following a random blood test in August. Both Kashechkin and Vinokourov were fired by their team after their positive tests. The Kazakh claims he did not inject his own blood to enhance his performance, and has protested the legitimacy

The 95th Tour: Polemics still simmering as challenging route unveiled

There was almost unanimous support for the proposed biological passport at the well-attended International Meeting Against Doping in Cycling held in Paris Monday and Tuesday. The meeting resulted in an agreement being signed by the World Anti-Doping Agency, the Union Cycliste Internationale and the conference’s host, the French Ministry of Health, Youth and Sports, with the goal being the passport program being introduced by the start of the 2008 road cycling season. So what is a biological passport? And what will it represent in the continuing fight against doping? To find out, VeloNews

The haze of the tenuous late-season job market cleared up a bit last week as two up-and-coming domestic teams announced key signings. The Successful Living Professional Cycling Team, which recently sawteam sponsor Russ Dalbey of Successful Living commit to three more years with an increased budget, announced that it has signed a two-year deal with 27-year-old Canadian CharlesDionne. Dionne, the only two-time winner of the difficult San Francisco Grand Prix, joins the team after spending 2007 racing with the domestic squad Colavita-Sutter Home. Prior to that, Dionne spent 2006 with ProTour

The Mailbag is a regular department on VeloNews.com. If you have a comment, an opinion or observation regarding anything you have read in VeloNews magazine or on VeloNews.com, write to webletters@insideinc.com. Please include your full name, hometown and state or nation. Letters may be edited for length and clarity. Writers are encouraged to limit their submissions to one letter per month. The letters published here contain the opinions of the submitting authors and should not be viewed as reflecting the opinions, policies or positions of VeloNews.com, VeloNews magazine or our parent company,

VeloSwap Denver to feature Lennard Zinn bike maintenance clinicVeloSwap attendees can upgrade components and learn maintenance and installation techniques from a master bike technician Boulder, CO, October 24, 2007 - Master bicycle framebuilder and VeloNews magazine Senior Technical Writer Lennard Zinn will present a workshop on bike maintenance at the Denver VeloSwap Special Events Stage on Saturday, October 27, at 12:00 noon. VeloSwap attendees can upgrade their bikes with new components available at VeloSwap, the world's largest consumer bike swap, and then learn installation,

A couple weeks ago I ventured to Ohio for the UCI double-header weekend.I hadn’t planned to attend these races, but three days prior an email fromUnited Airlines offered me affordable flights to fabulous destinationssuch as, the Caribbean, Europe, South America and Cincinnati. With no major events going on in Colorado, I thought to myself ”Whynot?” and booked the flight. I quickly got the lowdown from promoters,Mitch Graham of BioWheels and Doug Dobrozsl of Queen City Wheels and thetrip was set. After arriving in Cincinnati late Friday night – well, actually earlySaturday morning – I

Levi Leipheimer’s move to Astana is now official and he will join ex-Discovery Channel team manager Johan Bruyneel and Tour de France winner Alberto Contador at the new-look Astana team for 2008. Leipheimer said following the Disco-Astana migration was the natural choice following the closure of the Discovery Channel team at the end of this season after the long-running American squad couldn’t secure a new title sponsor. “It’s what I’m comfortable with. It’s what I am used to,” Leipheimer told The Associated Press. “It looked like everyone was going to go their separate ways. It was a big

Anne Gripper seen with David Howman, general director of WADA and Chairman of the French Agency for the fight against doping (AFLD) Pierre Bordry (R) in Paris.

VeloSwap Denver to feature Lennard Zinn bike maintenance clinic

All the heavy hitters were out for the kid's race in Ohio.

Now, that's one way to get over the barriers.

Everyone was checking out Molly Cameron's new handmade Vanilla.

Barry Wicks was already halfway through his post-race massage as I crossed the finish line.

All of this and more goes in there?

Leipheimer has formalized his jump to Astana

Dear Lennard,I recently experienced a sudden blowout of my road bike front tire that led to a crash and lots of injuries. I’m writing in an attempt to determine what went wrong and why. Although I do not remember the crash here’s what I do know. I was with two friends and we were about three minutes into a descent and traveling at about 35 mph. My two riding partners tell me that I was in the front and we were on a sweeping turn when they heard a loud “pop” and suddenly I was down. My front tire had blown. As a result my inner tube has about a four- to five-inch slit in it but the tire

Think back to what you were riding off-road a decade ago; you’ll probably chuckle. Maybe you had a 130mm stem, a 48-tooth big ring, or a Flite saddle — all of which were probably anodized purple — and none of which have any business being on a mountain bike. If you were at the cutting edge of suspension technology for cross-country racing you were riding an elastomer sprung fork with a cartridge damper. It’s a good bet it was a RockShox Judy. Back in 1997, I was riding for John Kemp’s RockShox DEVO team. I was a junior expert racer at the time. I had a Judy SL with 63mm of travel, and I was

The 2007 Verge MAC Series headed to the rural suburbs of Philadelphia on Sunday for the Wissahickon Cyclocross, a UCI C2 cyclocross at the Ludwigs Corner Horse Show Fairgrounds. On a day when New Englanders were talking about the previous night’s victory by the Red Sox, another regional team, CyclocrossWorld.com, pitched a no-hitter by finishing one-two for the second consecutive day. Not to be outdone, Colorado’s Kerry Barnholt (Tokyo Joe’s-Van Dessel) imitated her home state’s baseball team, the Colorado Rockies, by sweeping the weekend women’s series. The fairgrounds are nearly perfect

Reigning Tour de France champion Alberto Contador has a new home for the 2008-09 seasons. As previously reported on VeloNews.com, the Spanish climber on Tuesday confirmed a two-year contract with Astana. Contador follows former Discovery Channel sport director Johan Bruyneel to the new-look Astana team, which has been riddled with doping scandals during the 2007 season that saw star riders Alexander Vinokourov and Andrey Kashechkin test positive for blood doping. Contador, 24, insists that management changes within the Astana team will help assure a new start as he takes the difficult

The second Bike-A-GoGo, a women's bicycle demo day and expo, attracted some 500 attendees this past weekend at the Genoveva Chavez Community Center in Santa Fe, New Mexico. More than 35 companies, among them Giant, Trek, Scott, Specialized, Cannondale and Moots, displayed their wares during Saturday’s event, conducted by the Pedal Queens cycling club and sponsored by Women's Health Services. "We had people driving four hours," said spokeswoman and club member Jill Janov. "They showed up at 9 a.m. ready to demo bikes." Included in the festivities were seminars on a variety of

With the beer-induced haze of cyclocross World Cup No. 1 finally burning off, we figured it was time to empty the digi-cam in preparation for round two Saturday in Tabor, Czech Republic. Scroll down and check out some of the sights and scenes from the season opener held Sunday in Kalmthout, Belgium. In the men’s race Fidea’s rising star Zdenek Stybar took a commanding win, besting home-country hero Sven Nys (Rabobank) by 33 seconds. On the women’s side, it was Dutchwoman Daphny Van Den Brand topping American Katie Compton by just three seconds. There’s no women’s race at Tabor, but Nys

A brighter, cleaner future for cycling emerged Tuesday from a two-day summit in Paris formally called “An international meeting against doping in cycling,” The two-day conference ended with UCI president Pat McQuaid, World Anti-Doping Agency president Dick Pound and French minister for sport Roselyne Bachelot jointly signing a two-page document that sets out the parameters for the new “biological passport” that will be introduced in January 2008 and is designed to eliminate the kind of doping problems experienced at this year’s Tour de France. The outlook is brighter because after months of

SRAM suspension product manager, Sander Rigney outlines the spec's of the new SID.

The Subaru-Gary Fisher mountain bike team participated in the race, ‘Just for Fun’ and listened intently while Rigney gave the low down on the new SID. Sam Schultz and Jeremy Horgan-Kobelski were involved in the development of the new fork.

Chris Eatough got his hands on SID for the first time too.

His number plate has a little extra inspiration for those night laps taped to its back in the form of photos of his daughter.

‘Pilot Production’ means that all of the details are not quite worked out. The stickers on our forks were hand placed; the production forks will have decals under a clear coat.

Bikes wait for the LeMans start of Granny Gear’s 24-hours of Moab.

...and they're off!

What would a SRAM event be without HB? Here Greg Herbold gets a word of advice from Avid product manager, Paul Kantor, who served as HB’s team manager in Moab, before his night lap.

Contador hopes to defend his Tour title with Astana come 2008

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